Best Blogging Software

Blogger used to be a good blogging platform, especially for beginners. It was easy to use and setup, and not much technical know-how was required. There’s one major setback to using Blogger, though. You can’t take advantage of social bookmarking sites, at least not as effectively as you can with using WordPress. There are numerous WordPress Plugins, and some take advantage these sites.

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There is a new way to update friends and family on what is happening to your life. Using the internet, you can create a personal journal and share with people. This is called a web blog or blogging.

A blog is similar to a journal or diary where you can post your activities or thoughts on a regular basis.  Just like a diary this is solely maintained by you but the difference is that you can give access or allow people to read your blog or post comments on what you have written.

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Blogs can be a very marketable and very profitable tool if used correctly. Profiting from blogs is just a matter of grabbing the attention of an audience and not doing any actual salesmen selling. In this article you will learn the 13 most essential steps to successful blogging.

1) Where to start?

You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Journal Home. I don’t say that because I’m the owner, but a free blog host is very rewarding for a new blog.  Starting with a free blog hosting service allows you to begin blogging instantly without having any advance knowledge of scripts, hosting, or programming. It allows you to build an audience and buzz for your blog.  It allows you to focus on your content and not the internal maintenance of the blog. The best benefit of starting with a free service, is in the case your blog doesn’t become successful you do not lose any money or are you left holding the bill. The great thing about a blog is that they are organized in chronological order, your latest entry is displayed first. When your blog traffic grows greatly and you are ready to upgrade to your own domain then you can simply make your last blog entry the announcement of your “move”.  Simply add a last entry stating that your blog has “moved” and type the new blog URL address. Which directs visitors to your new blog site, keeping your following, without a major inconvenience to anyone. Upgrade as you need to…but only when you need to!

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Synergy Software Group announced the official launch of WP-Membership version 1.0, available stand-alone or bundled with a choice of web hosting solutions. With either bundle, anyone can have a complete WordPress-based membership site up and running almost instantly. Both bundles also include multiple pre-installed themes.

WP-Membership version 1.0 is a WordPress plugin that instantly creates a full-featured membership site for any business or organization looking to leverage the power of the WordPress platform. Membership sites are widely used by businesses and organizations seeking to create free or paid online social networking communities as well as e-commerce sites used to sell digital products and services to members.

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Blog is short for Web Log or Weblog and the Blogosphere is the online blog world, some parts of which are hyperlinked extensively to each other.

This is the Wikipedia definition: Blog is short for weblog. A weblog is a journal (or newsletter) that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author or the Web site.

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WordPress has become a hugely popular open source blogging and publishing platform. The abundance of free themes and plugins as well as its ease-of-use have contributed to the attraction and popularity for using WordPress. While there are some great free themes for WordPress, many only offer basic functionality and simplistic designs.Since late 2007 however an increasing number of WordPress theme developers have been offering premium WordPress themes – themes which are offered for a fixed price. These premium WordPress themes are usually sold for between $50 to $250. Originally only a small number of talented and well-known WordPress theme designers created paid premium WordPress themes which were well designed, highly functional, top-quality themes that transformed a WordPress installation from a simple blog into a powerful content management system. However as the premium WordPress theme business concept spread, more and more WordPress theme designers have hopped on the bandwagon trying to cash on the new trend filling up their portfolio with premium (paid) wordpress themes.However with greater variety and numbers of paid premium WordPress themes also comes varying levels of quality. So what specifically makes a premium WordPress theme premium? Some characteristics that should set a premium wordpress theme apart from a free theme are listed below:Quality and Unique DesignPremium WordPress themes should be just that – Premium. They should look better and be of a much higher quality and unique design than compared to those available for free.FeaturesWhile all themes are different, in general premium WordPress themes should have more “Features” than their free counterparts. What that means depends on the theme in question. However some features may include: “Featured Posts” areas, Multiple layout options for the home page, drop down menus, multiple customs templates for pages, custom field options, print style sheets etc.Customization Options and FexibilityPeople want options, so Premium WordPress themes should be customisable. Buying a premium theme will set you apart from the crowd significantly, but since other people will still be using the same theme, premium themes should be able to be easily customized further, whether it be for the layout, colours, images, or all of the above.Live Preview or DemoThere should be a live demo or preview of the theme so you can test it and check it out before buying. If there is no live preview or demo that should be a warning sign. You should ask why don’t they want you to test the theme first? All reputable premium theme sellers will have a live demo full of content for you to test. Explore the live demo thoroughly, testing all pages to see that the theme works properly and there are no errors or mistakes.Full SupportIf you’re buying a premium WordPress theme it should also come with a certain degree of support from the designer. The level of support can vary however and will range from personalised individual support from the designer, to the provision of forums or blog comment sections for asking questions and obtaining support from the designer and other people who have purchased the theme.Supporting DocumentationPremium WordPress themes should come with an instruction manual or document. This should explain how to upload and install the theme and how to manage any of the options that are built into the theme.Free UpdatesWordpress is continually being updated and improved and a premium WordPress theme developer should be offering you free updates of the theme when required.Well Coded and Error Free There should be no coding errors, misspellings, X images, etc in a premium WordPress theme. The theme has cross browser compatible and been tested to work properly on all the major browsers, plus the theme should have clean and valid code and adhere to strict XHTML and CSS standards.

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The free open source blogging platform WordPress continues to be a popular tool for internet marketers who want to create websites fast. Though feature rich, an out-of-the-box WordPress install lacks some features that many internet marketers rely on. Fortunately, there are many free Worpdress plugins that provide these features. Here are three of the most popular. Keep in mind, before you install any of these plugins, you’ll want to make certain you have the current version of WordPress installed to avoid any errors or possible vulnerabilities. The latest upgrade of the platform can always be updated at WordPress.org’s main site. All In One SEO Pack – Although blog traffic can come from many sources besides the search engines, there’s no doubt that free natural search engine traffic is still very important to the success of any website or blog. With the All In One Seo pack plugin, your WordPress blog will be automatically optimized for onsite SEO. This plugin saves hours of time over tweaking themes, options and individual plugins to acheive the same results. Please note that because the search engines often change the way they rank pages, you’ll want to have the most current version of this plugin. Check back frequently on their main site to make sure your plugin is up to date. Adsense Plugin – This plugin has been around for a while, but it is upgraded to work with the current version of WordPress. Seems the popularity of adsense never goes away, even if the earnings per click have gone down over the past few years. If you want a quick and easy way to get adsense or even Yahoo Publisher Network ads showing up on your WordPress blogs, and you want an easy way to control where they show up and how they look, this is a must have plug-in. The learning curve is very fast with this plugin, and users will enjoy tweaking the settings to increase ad clickthroughs and profits. Remember though, Adsense isn’t your only option for monetizing your blog. You can also run paid ads yourself by dealing directly with other sites that want to advertise. Though more profitable, it is also more time consuming. FeedWordPress – Feedwordpress is a plugin that takes rss feeds and creates full pages out of them on your blog automatically. It should not be used alone, as your site will start to look like a scraper site. When added to a blog with original content though, it can greatly increase traffic to your site. A couple of warnings though, the learning curve with this plugin is high and you need to make sure you have permission to use the rss feeds you program this plugin with. Most sites that have rss feeds available also provide a copy of their terms of service for using the feeds, so be sure to check those out. Not complying with another site’s TOS can lead to nasty emails or even a cease and desist letter, so consider yourself warned.

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